Summary: In a crossover trial in healthy postmenopausal women, honey-sweetened yogurt did not change the primary inflammatory outcome (IL-23), plasma lipids, bile acids, or fecal short-chain fatty acids; only a secondary cytokine, IL-33, was lower than with sugar-sweetened yogurt.
PICO Summary
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Population | Healthy postmenopausal women aged 45–65 (randomised crossover). |
| Intervention | Two 150 g servings of yogurt at breakfast sweetened with a tablespoon of clover blossom honey, for 4 weeks. |
| Comparison | Isocaloric sugar-sweetened yogurt for 4 weeks. |
| Outcome | Primary outcome (plasma IL-23) unchanged; no change in plasma lipids, bile acids, or fecal SCFAs. Secondary: IL-33 significantly lower after honey than sugar, independent of microbial metabolites. |
Expert Commentary
The hypothesis is reasonable, honey brings rare sugars, oligosaccharides, and phenolics that might nudge inflammation and the gut in a healthier direction than plain sugar, and a crossover design is a sensible way to test it. But intellectual honesty starts with the primary endpoint, and this one was flatly negative: IL-23 did not move, nor did lipids, bile acids, or short-chain fatty acids. What remains is a single secondary cytokine, IL-33, that differed, and in a study measuring multiple inflammatory markers, one lone positive among many nulls is exactly what chance tends to produce. I would not build a recommendation on it. The population was also healthy with little inflammation to shift, and four weeks is brief. Can I use this with my patients? No, not as an anti-inflammatory strategy. If a patient prefers a spoon of honey to refined sugar in their yogurt that is harmless, but I would not pretend it meaningfully lowers inflammation on this evidence, and added sugar of any kind still counts toward their intake. A larger trial powered for a prespecified cytokine, with honey kept within added-sugar limits, would be needed to say more.
References
Chen Y, Medici V, Keen CL, Holt RR. The influence of daily honey-sweetened yogurt intake on outcomes of low-grade inflammation and microbial metabolites in postmenopausal women. Nutrients. 2026;18(3):522. doi:10.3390/nu18030522